The Love Guru
Directed by Marco Schnabel
(PG-13)
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Mike Myers transforms himself into a New Age teacher.
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The Love Guru is “a disappointment, but it’s not a disaster,” said Mick LaSalle in the San Francisco Chronicle. In his latest madcap creation, Mike Myers plays Pitka, the world’s No. 2 self-help guru. Longing to become more popular than Deepak Chopra, Pitka agrees to help the Toronto Maple Leafs’ star player restore his marriage. The Love Guru isn’t up to Myers’ usual comedic standard. But the actor himself remains funny. Pitka lives by the mantra “Mariska Hargitay,” for instance—a nonsensical nod to a Law & Order actress. Other amusing bits include Myers playing Dolly Parton’s “9 to 5” on the sitar, said Claudia Puig in USA Today. He and Jessica Alba also break into a Bollywood number at one point. But The Love Guru “fails to achieve enlightenment,” let alone many laughs, and ultimately “devolves into a Myers vanity project.” You can’t help feeling that Myers has “lost his touch,” said A.O. Scott in The New York Times. Many hyperactive scenes here are actually “anti-funny”: Not only do you not laugh, you “wonder if you will ever laugh again.”
